Where reading can rot your brain…

AR: CDM 5

Chapter 5 – Renting a Car

unedited

“Hey! What in the world?” The boy followed Bai Ling for who knew how long. He even went through all kinds of passages in between high-rise buildings until their towering figures turn smaller in the distance. The sky had turned completely dark and the temperature had cool down a bit. The main point was how did she know all those shortcuts?

The answer was simple. In her previous life, Bai Ling wanted to escape from the legions of zombies and safely leave the city. Thus she had plan her itinerary countless time, so how could she not know every nook and cranny of this city?

Although she left the area with the densest human population, it didn’t mean that the surrounding area was desolate. On the contrary, the outskirts had many shops opened, mainly those automobile concessions and car rental shops. There was even many supermarkets and residential areas.

Bai Ling looked at the time. “7:50 PM?” She suddenly wanted to curse out loud. Despite traversing the city without any obstructions and using all the shortcuts she knew, she still spent that much time to arrive here. There was only 40 minutes left.

Previously, the first incident of people biting and eating other people happened around 8:30PM. Since she was currently at the outskirts, she didn’t know if the incident would happen ahead of time.

Fortunately, the car rental shop Bon Voyage wasn’t far from here.

Why did she know about this shop? That’s because she once helped the shop with their promotion campaign. Besides, they have all types of the cars that included many options.

After Bai Ling reached her destination, she ditched the bicycle on the ground and quickly ran into the shop.

It just happened the boss, a middle-aged man in his forties, was just done giving the key car to a client. When he saw the door opened and there was a customer coming so late in the evening, his first thought was to welcome the customer, but when he saw Bai Ling dashing towards him, he quickly recognized her. “Ah! Isn’t it Miss Bai? What brings you here today?”

He immediately laughed. “Hahaha! The promotion plan your company gave us ended up pretty good. These days, the sales are increasing steadily.”

Bai Ling nodded lightly and politely returned his greetings. Perhaps due to living in the apocalypse for too long, she was no longer used interacting with those kind of cordial and good people.

Although she knew that time was ticking off, she remained calm and composed. “Boss Xiao, I came here today to rent a car!” As Bai Ling spoke, she had already took out her bank card. That bank card contained all her savings she earned from her part-time jobs the last three years. Originally, the savings was meant to be kept until she had enough before giving it to her grandmother, uncle and little sister to use, but after the world ended, what was the use of money?

Whereas, food became the most precious thing and people would killed each other over a piece of bread. When she remembered about those times, her eyes darkened and she thought of her little sister.

“Oh?” The boss thought he misheard, but when he looked at her resolute eyes, he quickly nodded with a big smile. “Alright! Since Miss Bai needed a car, I’ll give you a good price. I don’t know which kind of car you want to rent?”

Without hesitation, Bai Ling pointed at the black colored latest Land Rover model shown on the car rental billboard.

This car had a high chassis with a pretty good performance. If possible, Bai Ling would have preferred a military-built Land Rover. Unfortunately, it was impossible to have that kind of car for commercial use.

Boss Xiao raised his head and smiled. The rental price for such car was quite expensive, he can negotiate for quite a lump sum. “Sure! How many days?”

“One day!” Bai Ling was a university student so of course she had her driver license and because her uncle work in a car repair shop, she picked up a few things by helping her uncle modifying and repairing second-hand cars!

Later during the apocalypse, those skills became her second nature as she would used them to escape from all kinds of zombies and throw off her trails the mutated beasts.

“Only one day?” Could it be that it’s for an emergency? “Okay, come with me!” He didn’t delay her and hurriedly waved at one of the employee and gave a few instructions.